He didn’t understand the difference.
“Don’t worry about it.” She shook her head before scooping her spoon into her liquid meal, before nodding in the direction of the trinkets. “If humans can make those to protect their houses, how come we don’t know about them?”
He stared down at them. “Humans tend not to ask me too many questions. They are too afraid to want to obtain knowledge from me that can benefit them.”
“It would have been handy for my family to know,” she said quietly, her spoon falling to rest in the bowl as she held onto it.
She stared deeply into her food.
“You said you didn’t have anyone you care for.”
Her back stiffened before she continued eating. “I don’t.”
“But you just mentioned your family. I’ve come to learn that such relationships are important to your kind.”
“Mine are all dead.” Her eyes narrowed when a dark emotion fell over her features. He wasn’t sure if it was sadness or anger, or perhaps a mixture of the two.
He took a long time to ask his question, wary about upsetting her. “Did Demons kill them?”
Her head turned to the side to look away as she said, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
He didn’t press the issue.
On the third day of Reia living in the Duskwalker’s home, he brought her outside to show her something he had done.
He showed her a tree stump that came to her knee height and the small side table from the living room that had been placed at the back of the house right in the middle of the garden.
“You made me a place to sit?” she asked, turning to him with a frown.
“You sat in the dirt yesterday to eat your breakfast.” He was referencing the previous day when Reia had sat on the ground in the middle of the garden and ate fruit, picking freely from what was available. He tilted his head, before it turned to look around at the garden that was filled with warm sunlight. “I can take it away if that is what you would prefer.”
She could see he’d already gone ahead and placed a bowl with a wooden spoon on the table. Although he produced her bathwater by using a spell with his blood, he would actually leave for a short while to obtain water from a fresh stream not too far away for her to drink.
She figured the water would take too long to carry in loads to fill the tub, and that he’d had issues in the past with people not wanting to drink the water created from his
blood. Reia was a curious person and had tasted the tub water before he started applying the oils to her skin each morning and night, and found it wasn’t good for consumption.
Although it didn’t have a smell, there was a gross taste to it, one that was metallic and bloody.
She knew the cup of water already on the table next to the bowl must be from the bucket of water he carried from the stream.
“No, I like this better.” She sat on the stump and gave him a forced smile to show him she accepted it.
“I can make you a proper chair.”
Reia felt something tug on her heart strings.
“You don’t have to go out of your way for me.”
She turned her gaze down to her lap as she brushed her fingers over the top surface of the stump to feel its roughness. The roots were still connected and looked as though they’d been snaped off to create a firm base so it didn’t tip.
This is really thoughtful.
He was being really thoughtful.
But she didn’t want him to do things for her. She didn’t want him to change his home when she had every intention of figuring out a way to leave.
She’d managed to wrangle up the courage yesterday to find out what he’d eat while she was here since he wasn’t intending to eat her. He’d told her he would eventually leave to hunt. Animals, he was planning on going to the surface to hunt for a deer or a wolf. However, she also thought he might hunt a human if he stumbled upon one. He said he even fished in the stream nearby occasionally when mating season had finished and there were more fish travelling through it.
The sun faded over the right of the forest. She knew from travelling here that they had always been walking towards
the sunsets, which meant all she needed to do was go the opposite way, and she’d hopefully find the Veil’s cliff walls.
She’d decided that if she survived that long and she could garner enough of his trust that he left to hunt – because she doubted he’d do it now – that she would leave then.
I just have to be good until then. Don’t anger him, don’t make him hungry, don’t accidentally hurt myself so I bleed too much.
She’d been making a mental list of what not to do.
Survival was her intention, and with the circlet amulet he’d given her, the bathing he said that hid her human scent, and hopefully with her cloak shielding her, she could walk through the Veil safely if she was smart.
Which meant, Reia had come to a distressing decision this morning.
“I want to make you comfortable,” he rebuffed, making her inwardly cringe.
